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Intel announcement not hurting PPC sales

updated 10:20 am EDT, Mon July 25, 2005

by MacNN Staff

Current Mac sales

Although many Apple fans and analysts worry that the company's switch to Intel processors will put sales of current hardware on hold until updates, the evidence at the moment indicates . According to an it-analysis report, Apple still occupies five of the top six slots in Amazon's list of top selling computers, which is updated hourly. "This indicator showed no drop in demand following the Intel announcement. Of course, demand may diminish in the coming months, but I suspect that most buyers don't care too much about it either way." Regarding the so-called "halo" effect, "the prediction by Forbes that Apple will grow its PC market share from 3 percent to 5 percent this year, looks like it will be fulfilled." Moreover, "we can think of Apple as heading towards a 10 percent share of the home market."

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Do you think Apple may take this as a sign and start better pre-announcing and informing its customers of its roadmaps, so they can make informed purchasing decisions, rather than hiding behind their infamous "We don't comment on unnannounced products"?

Assuming Apple is reading all this media speculation regarding fantastic continuing growth through this year, and maybe next year, I hope it is also planning something else: a huge media blitz next year to announce the arrival of MacTel. You and I may say "big deal" and we might even suspect that some of our apps will be slower for a while on MacTel. However, the other 90% of the PC market (and dare I say IT people too) will see this a sign that the Mac is finally a "safe" computer to buy. So, Apple can use that kind of "awareness" along with the iPod Halo effect to bring in new blood to the platform.

I also hope Apple drops the eMac, and instead gets a contract for a dirt cheap Monitor to sell along with its MacTel mini, as a loss leader to really grow the Mac market.

So what if Apple's sales via Amazon were unaffected...but Amazon does not account for a significant percentage of Apple CPU sales.

So what if "Apple still occupies five of the top six slots in Amazon's list of top selling computers." What other computers does Amazon sell?

Ranking as the top computers sold by Amazon does not even necessarily mean that Apple sales at Amazon have not decreased; it only means that Amazon is still selling more Macs than other computers. Quite meaningless consider how few PCs Amazon sells.

The fact is that Apple's overall sales are being affected by the Intel announcement. I work at an Apple store and we have had dozens and dozens of people come in asking about the Intel based Macs and telling us that they are going to wait until then before purchasing a new Mac. Some people who had previously ordered a new Macs, cancelled their orders after the announcement came out.

I keep hearing this theory, about IT pros suddenly starting to advocate the Mac simply because of the processor it uses... I'm sorry, but the processor has little, if anything, to do with that situation. Its the *platform* that matters. IT guys/gals avoid the Mac because of the image the Mac and Apple historically held. That has started to change dramatically because of OS X (and OS X alone), and if anything, it is OS X that will change their minds in the future, not the processor the box is running on.

I suspect that 95% of people who walk into an Apple store to buy a Mac have NO IDEA who makes the processor, and furthermore, they don't care! The switch to Intel is only big news in places like MacNN and Slashdot.

Gee, you've already given up hope for apple to market the h*** out of tiger, huh? Now its "Let's market the h*** out of Mactel!". Sorry, but since Apple doesn't market their computers anymore (its now a long-standing policy in the company that computers and OSes should no longer be marketed on TV as people find these ads confusing and causes them much consternation - "Does apple sell computers now? I thought they sold iPods? I'm so confused! I'm buying some Windows-Media-based player!".

Of course, its hard to complain about this philosophy, because no one has ever liked any of Apple's commercials over the past 10 years. They're always complaining on MacNN about this one or that, and how stupid it is. And they just want to know specs, like how fast it'll run Doom. Or whatever.

I dropped my plans to purchase another mac because of the transition, and then bought one anyway, delaying my purchase about a month.

I may not be typical, but I really don't care that someday they will use intel. When they use intel, someday, I guess the machine that I buy that year will have an intel in it.

what I buy a mac for is os x. not because I like apple..I don't, they are a mini-microsoft, monopolist wanna-be control freaks.. But I am productive on iMovie, photoshop, and xcode...and I like to stay productive.

This is just speculation, but maybe people are buying up PowerPC Macs now, knowing that Classic will be completely functionless with an Intel processor. Yeah yeah, I know, "who uses Classic anymore", but it's still of concern to some folks, including me (heck, I opted to buy a refurbished TiBook just so I'd have the option of booting into OS 9, which I've had to do on occasion).

Or, as someone else said, perhaps it's just that the common shopper doesn't know about the upcoming switch, or understand its implications, or care. But then, how many of Apple's customers are the "common shopper"?

I hope X runs faster. i get tired of the lag in closing safari. 1.6 g5 with 2gigs of ram and it runs like an g3 ibook

Wow, you're biggest complaint is how long it takes to quit a program? Why do you even care? You close it and start something else. h***, you've got 2GB, it can't be that you need that extra ram in order to start up you email or something.

As a new owner of a dual 2.3 GHz and an old owner of one of those defective G3 iBooks (worst Mac experience ever - shows how badly apple has fallen in terms of Quality control and care), the G5 kicks the iBooks a**.

Um, its not tax-free. You're required by your local taxing district to declare all purchases you've made where you did not pay the sales tax and pay them. So you're not paying the tax to Amazon, but you're still supposed to do it.

And I heard a story once, it might be true, that someone actually did this. Could be one of those "Urban Legends", though.

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